Jacqueline C. Rineer

Category Archives: Art

I love fall. I love the brisk air, falling leaves, and changing colors. Some of the trees here turn a lovely shade of red, my favorite. However, this month has been a blur and not easy. I’ve been learning to fall again – realizing I’ve fallen backward and picking myself back up again. This October has knocked the wind out of me. There are more details below but today I’m in the process of getting up, back into a routine and making myself useful instead of laying around and wasting time.

[1] This is what I’ve been doing most of today; it’s version 4 of this site right here, a merger of killmortality.net and this site. I decided to combine them because I am no longer trying to branch out in a bunch of different directions. I’m just me, and this is just my site. So very soon KM.net will have been eaten up by JCR.com.

It sort of reminds me of how far I’ve actually come in the 7 years since KM.net was born. In a way, KM is like my teenage self and JCR is me now. The younger, dumber me finally being consumed by her grown-up version.

SOON :)

[2] I’ve been baking a lot, really, in the kitchen a lot. I have found such a joy in cooking in the last 2 years (since I haven’t had a kitchen of my own). I recently made my husband’s favorite fall dessert, apple dumplings (he helped).

[3] In the spirit of a new portfolio, I have been trying to motivate myself to produce more art to fill it with. A couple nights ago I was sketching and (below that) playing with Photoshop and ideas for new pieces.

[4] The first part of the month was especially draining. I guess I slipped into my depression [of sorts], which I’m now getting out of, when I received some sad news from my mother. She called and told me that our sweet Sabrina had inexplicably passed away. I had recently decided to let my mom keep her since she had, as of a few months ago lived with my parents longer than us. That and my family had fallen in love with her. Still, I was very upset when I heard. Apparently, she fell asleep…

I don’t know about some people, but to me my pets are members of my family and losing one hurts just as bad. I guess that’s part of it.

What a long time for me NOT to be blogging! These posts were weekly (or bi-weekly) but last month was such a blur I didn’t do much writing.

I can’t say that June was a super “busy” month for us. Tristan and I have been working on web projects, as we do almost constantly but in the month of June I got creative for the first time in a long time, in other ways I had forgotten.

[1] I did some drawing in June, coupled with a little Photoshop…Just practicing my “Americanized” whatever-you-want to-call-it drawings. I don’t feel like it super important for me to practice drawing since I decided I wanted my novel to be a novel but I think it’s good to have it in my arsenal of talents.

[2] My major excursion in the month of June was a trip with my mother-in-law to Doylestown to see the famed Fonthill Castle. I was totally blown away by the architecture and the sheer genius of the construction. If you aren’t familiar with Fonthill, the entire structure is concrete save some mud, hay, and wood used for the impressive archways inside (Google it, it’s really cool). Unfortunately, I couldn’t take pictures inside.

An extra special treat was that our tour guide actually knew the people that lived there after Henry Chapman Mercer who built Fonthill as his dream house, passed away. She told us stories about what he was like and a more detailed summery of how he built such a structure. Needless to say I’ll be making another trip with the hubby. Having no house of my own makes me that much more appreciative of houses in general so I was thrilled to visit a 100+ year old mansion like Fonthill.

[3] Another thing I created in June: clouds!

This year was the first time ever that our church had VBS (Vacation Bible School). Again, having no home of my own [to decorate], I happily signed up to be a decorator for the program. The theme was SKY, which is right up my alley and I was excited. I ended up making a LOT of these clouds out of cardboard, plastic bags, fabric, and fluff with my friend, Olivia. It was a good time. We would hang out on Chestnut Street afterward, hence the frozen yogurt (which was delicious).

When everything was put together before VBS it really looked good! What a pleasure to serve!

Now I’m thinking:I may not be in the best place in my life right now but I’m sure in a good place to be useful.

[4]This is the first photomanipulation I’ve done in, literally years. Nothing special but I did have fun doing it. If you’ve been to my art site at all you’ll see some more of these things. The last one I did before this was in 2009 I think. I started doing these in high school but eventually I grew up and they (among other things) faded into the background and fizzled out.

I just checked killmortality.net, my art network/portfolio again today after a long, long “hiatus”. The fact is, I’ve been focusing on my web design company and my work in that part of life, hence the neglect. I posted this update on there, but I thought I’d post here too because I’ve been updating this site a lot more.

I started killmortality as an art network to hold all my artwork in 2005, I was 18 at the time and I produced a ton of artwork in high school; photomanipulation, photography, drawing, painting, poetry… Anyway, the site has gone through 16 versions since then and now I almost don’t touch it. The artist in me seems to be asleep for now.

Here’s a screenshot of the current version.

However, I have made progress in a few areas. First, I have decided to take the “graphic novel” potion of my portfolio down. I have done this for three reasons: one/two is that I’m changing my drawing style to be more American AND I’ve decided that my novel is going to be a NOVEL and not a GRAPHIC NOVEL. However, I am planning to illustrate the cover and I do want to release an art book sometime after the novel…when I get to that point. Reason three is that I’m serious about writing this book, therefore, I’ve decided that I need to be more careful about where I post and who sees my posts about the book in particular. In fact, I won’t even be posting chapters or synopses. I have chosen just two people to critique the first draft (they know who they are) the rest of you (if you’re wondering) have to wait until it’s published.

Some recent sketches. Spoilers.

I have made progress. The first draft of chapters one and two are finished and other pieces different points in the book have been written, I just have to fill the rest in and figure out how I want to put it together.

As for my art in other mediums (see above); as much as I’d love to do it all…I can’t. At least not now. I may do a painting here, a photomanip there as I feel like it and as I have time. I really DO miss producing so much, but I was doing many of these things 10 years ago. I’m an adult now and busy with adult things. And sometimes that’s depressing.

If you’ve known me for any length of time you know that I’m writing a novel. If you didn’t know, I’m writing a novel lol. Though I still can’t decide if this novel is going to have illustrations in it or not, I drew some stuff last night for the first time since…December? Anyway, I’ve been drawing for years. I started drawing manga (Japanese comics) in high school when I got the idea for my book. Lately though, I’ve been trying to “Americanize” my style in case I decide to add illustrations to it.

The Book

The book I’m writing is a religious fiction/fantasy/macabre story about a girl that who see “monsters”; let’s just call it “RS” (those ARE the initials). I know some people will know what that means, but since I intend to publish this within the next two or three years, I don’t want to revel too much, especially since I’m still in the first draft.

I have decided this though: I am going to write something for this book each day (except Sunday, of course) until the first draft is done, then I’ll revise until I’m ready to release excerpts for review. Following God knows how many drafts, my goal this book in or before 2015.

To date I have written over 5,000 words along with some of the more critical points in the story line. Not that impressive yet, I know, but I soooo excited about making progress on this! Especially because I was really struggling with getting the first draft of the first chapter done; now I’m in the middle of the second. Success!

The Art

You can see some of my old “Japanese” style drawings (from 2004-2011) on my personal art network which I started waaay back in 2005 =)

Here’s some new stuff.

My main character in my “American” style

I’ve been studying all sorts of comic techniques for this! The faces are the hardest thing because they change a lot but the bodies don’t really change too much from style to style.

Anyway, I wanted to share my progress with you because I thought of this, which I have on one of Pinterest boards: